Donal's blog

I can see the Olympics from my couch

Donal — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:29:48 +0000

My daughter and I spent much of Friday and Saturday in cosplay at Otakon, but I got to watch some of NBC's Olympic coverage — which in some events seemed more obsessively focused on Americans than ever.

On Saturday morning, I did catch Alexander Vinokurov's surprising and crafty victory in the cycling road race. Vino followed the younger legs of Rigoberto Uran to get ahead of the pack, then the Kazakh sprinted for the line while the Colombian was still foolishly looking back at what had long ceased to be the main threat. Vino is another rider with a long history of doping scandals, banned in 2007 and associated with now-banned-for-life Dr Michel Ferrari.

On Saturday, I missed Ryan Lochte's gold medal win [4:05.18] in the 400 Individual Medley. Lochte did not break Michael Phelps world record (WR) from Beijing, but he beat silver medalist Thiago Pereira [4:08.86] of Brazil by three and a half seconds. Japan’s Kosuke Hagino [4:08.94] took bronze ahead of Phelps, who (in a replay) looked a bit shocked to finish out of the medals, but who posted props to Lochte on Facebook for keeping the gold medal in American hands.

Before the Women's 400 IM, the announcers were talking up American Elizabeth Beisel. China's Ye Shiwen led slightly after the butterfly leg, and Beisel didn't fall very far behind in the backstroke, and the announcers predicted that Beisel would pull away in the breast leg then hold on in the free. Beisel did pull to almost a body length lead after a strong breaststroke leg, but then Ye tore away in the freestyle leg, setting a world record [4:28.43]. Beisel took silver [4:31.27] and China’s Li Xuanxu took bronze [4:32.91].

Korea's Tae-hwan Park had been disqualified for a false start in the prelims of the 400 Free, which was troubling because a Canadian official's dq of Park would have let Canadian Ryan Cochrane into the final eight. While the video clearly showed that another swimmer had moved instead, Olympics procedure supposedly didn't allow for video review. Somehow Park was reinstated, though, and my Korean friend upstairs told me that the chairman of Samsung had his entire family in the stands. As I expected, though, China’s Sun Yang was too much for Park. Sun set an Olympic record [3:40.14] while Park took silver [3:42.06] and American Peter Vanderkaay took bronze [3:44.69]. My friend told me that Park was crying. There's no crying in swimming.

In the Women’s 4×100 freestyle relay, Australia set an Olympic record [3:33.15] for gold, the Netherlands took silver and the USA took bronze. The Americans seemed happy enough to have medaled.

On Sunday, I walked the trash over to the dumpster so I could miss most of the synchronized diving. I had this idea to invent Rhythmic Synchronized Gymnastic Waterfalling, whereby all the sports that elude my interest could be rolled into one, and then over the nearest falls. When does ninja warrior become an Olympic sport?

After a while the US water polo team took on the fearsome squad from Montenegro. It was a good defensive match, though I have to admit that I still don't understand how almost drowning a guy can be a foul sometimes but not all of the time. They showed some beach volleyball, then moved to gymnastics. I like gymnastics, and had enjoyed watching the men's routines the night before. At one point a coach told a young American male gymnast, "Smile a bit. You just finished your first day at the Olympics."

In contrast, the way they gushed over the American Fab Five turned me right off. Even when a Fab made some awkward landings, the announcers couldn't stop promoting their overall form as far superior to the rest of the world. How could the right-wingers not enjoy that?

Back to swimming,and in Women's 100 Fly, America's Dana Vollmer set a new World Record [55.98] taking the gold, China’s Ying Lu took silver [56.87] and Australia’s Alicia Coutts took bronze [56.94].

In 100 Breaststroke, NBC kept talking up the rivalry between Brendan Hansen and Kitajima Kosuke, but neither man was in the center lanes. Hansen had beaten Kitajima once, but never at the Games, and the Japanese was trying to win a third gold medal in 100 Breast. But it was South Africa’s Cameron van der Burgh that led all the way and set a World Record [58.46] to take the gold medal. Australia’s Christian Sprenger took silver [58.93] and Hansen took bronze [59.49], beating Kitajima, who came in fifth. I read that van der Burgh paid tribute to his late competitor Alexander Dale Oen at the finish, but I didn't catch it on NBC.

In the women’s 400 Freestyle, I was on my feet as NBAC's Allison Schmitt stayed within a foot or so of France's Camille Muffat for almost the entire race, with the duo clearly in front of the field. Muffat pulled away on the final length, but Schmitt almost pulled even to finish only three-hundredths behind. Muffat set an Olympic record [4:01.45], Allison Schmitt took silver [4:01.77] and Great Britain's Rebecca Adlington took bronze [4:03.01].

In the Men's 4x100 relay, the announcers downplayed the American team's chance against an Australian team led by James Magnussen, nicknamed the Missile, but said anything was possible. They were right. The Aussies and Americans had the center lanes, and the strong French team, still smarting from a surprise loss in Beijing were next to the Americans. Everyone was startled to see American Nathan Adrian leading Magnussen, who only swam 48.03 in the first leg. Magnusson was supposed to have a 46 something in him. The Aussies faded, but the French were still close behind.

Phelps gave the Americans a decent lead on his leg, and Cullen Jones held on for a slight lead in the third leg. So when Ryan Lochte dove in just ahead of Frenchman Yannick Agnel, it looked like another gold medal surprise. But Lochte had already swum in the 200 semifinals that day, and was unable to answer Agnel's attack. Agnel pulled even in 50 meters, then Lochte pulled ahead with an excellent turn, but Agnel blazed past Lochte again to win the gold [3:09.93]. The French were ecstatic in their revenge, and Lochte looked exactly like a guy who let down his team, though he didn't swim badly at all as the team won silver [3:10.38]. Magnussen was a guy who let down his team, which finished fourth [3:11.63] behind the Russians, who took bronze [3:11.41]. Aussie Coach Nugent called the result disastrous.

Topics:

Sports

The Agony of the Tweet

Donal — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:59:35 +0000

Athletes, especially Olympians, are to be seen and not heard, or even read. Remember when Crash Davis explains the perfect sports interview to Nuke Laloosh?

Davis: You're gonna have to learn your clichés. You're gonna have to study them, you're gonna have to know them. They're your friends. Write this down: "We gotta play it one day at a time."

LaLoosh: Got to play... it's pretty boring.

Davis: 'Course it's boring, that's the point. Write it down.

Recently, triple jumper Paraskevi (Voula) Papachristou, tweeted, "With so many Africans in Greece... the West Nile mosquitoes will at least eat homemade food!!!" She was promptly expelled from the Greek Olympic team. Her politics and her not being a strong threat to medal may have made the decision easier.

Papachristou also retweeted videos and postings from Golden Dawn, an extreme right party that got an unexpected boost in Greek elections this year, winning 7% of the vote. The party, whose symbol resembles a swastika, is virulently opposed to immigration and has been denounced for thuggish tactics.

Australian swimmers Nick D'Arcy and Kenrick Monk are banned from using social media during the Games, and are to be sent packing directly after their events for tweeting pictures of themselves holding pistols and shotguns in a Santa Clara gun shop. Seems that their pix were interpreted as thumbing their noses at Australia's strict gun laws.

And, of course, forty-four years ago Tommie Smith and John Carlos lost their 200m track medals for their famous black power salute.

Avery Brundage, president of the International Olympic Committee in 1968, declared that the Games should be apolitical and ordered the pair to be thrown out of the Olympic Village. The move was one of grotesque hypocrisy given that Brundage, as head of the US Olympic Commission in 1936, had ensured American athletes’ complicity in the Nazi salute in Berlin. But he was far from alone in denouncing Smith and Carlos. Time magazine made reference to their “ugly” statement on its front over. Brent Musburger, a prominent CBS broadcaster, branded them “black-skinned storm troopers”. Within 48 hours of the protest, the pair had their Mexican visas withdrawn and were ejected from the country.

Former Olympians can catch some flak, too. Salon's Amy Bass is taking long sprinter Michael Johnson to task for crediting his sports prowess to his slave genes. In “Slave genes” myth must die, she writes:

... when Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson predicted this month that African-American and West Indian track athletes would dominate the London Olympics because of the genes of their slave ancestors, I paid little attention, thinking there was no way this could become a viable conversation yet again. “All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it’s impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn’t left an imprint through the generations,” Johnson told the Daily Mail. “Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me –- I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us.”

Bass recalls the racist gaffes of Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis and Rush Limbaugh. She also notes the Runner's World article arguing, "there is a geological divide between West African and East African muscle-twitch fibers that explains why some black athletes, Kenyans, had endurance while African-Americans excelled at shorter distances."

Her article does not mention Malcolm Gladwell's piece supposing that Africans may excel at running because they have a wider variety of genes than descendants of groups that left Africa. I read that about fifteen years ago in The New Yorker, I think. Gladwell, a former sprinter himself, felt that Africans, as a group, would have the best and the worst genes, and that non-Africans would fall in between. But with all the revelations about interbreeding with Neandertal, Erectus and now perhaps the Denisovans, it seems our Sapiens gene pool gained quite a bit from places other than Africa.

Essentially, Bass attacks the very definition of saying someone is "black" when folk with backgrounds as diverse as golfer Tiger Woods and swimmer Anthony Ervin can be unscientifically presumed to have the same genes because they aren't "white." She notes that Howard University anthropologist W Montague Cobb considered Olympic hero Jesse Owens more Caucasoid than Negroid. Imagine tweeting that about Usain Bolt.

Update: When I was a kid, I read a book by sports talk show host Bill Mazer. He wrote that there had been successions of immigrant champions, most lately African-Americans, and someone once asked him: what makes a good boxer? Mazer's answer: Poverty.

Topics:

Sports

Closing Ranks

Donal — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 01:10:36 +0000

I used to work in Central Pennsylvania — just PA to anyone from there. I was there long enough to realize that Penn State was both a revered institution and an 800 lb gorilla. I suppose that's true of other schools, but I have lots of family and friends who attended or worked for PSU, and still do.

Loyalty to Penn State and faith in JoePa continues to be very strong. On Saturday, in a stealthy 6 AM maneuver, PSU removed the Paterno sculpture, calling it a "distraction." The faithful are appalled. Even my liberal, union brother-in-law is resentful, claiming that the Freeh report is not the last word in the investigation.

America is often called a melting pot, but people have allegiances to groups and institutions that rival any sort of national patriotism.

On Democracy Now, Chris Hayes compared the closing ranks of PSU officials to the closing ranks of Vatican officials. Hayes is editor-at-large of The Nation, has a show on MSNBC and has written a book, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.

CHRIS HAYES: What’s so remarkable about the details that have come out from Penn State, first of all, is how much it looks like what happened in the Catholic Church ... a victim of priest abuse in Belgium, his uncle happens to be the bishop, and he is sitting in the room with his uncle who’s the bishop and the priest who abused him, in which his uncle, the bishop, is prevailing upon him not to press charges on his abuser, because the abuser is about to retire. ... And the abuse victim says to the bishop, "Why do you feel sorry for him and not me?" And that, to me, is the moral core of the transgression here, right? It is, the social distance had grown up to be so massive — in some ways, it was baked into the cake in the church hierarchy — between the bishops and the priests, who they considered their club, and the parishioners.

And what we see in Penn State is an identical situation. The coaches and the athletic director and the hierarchy of the university are on the inside and are all looking out for each other, as opposed to looking out for the people that they have a duty to look out for, which are the children who are coming into contact, sometimes being abused on the property of Penn State. It’s that kind of elite self-protection that produces crisis and corruption and scandal.

Hayes goes on to describe the club including Wall Street, Bankers, the Fed, and the Senate, drawing inevitable objections from their lackeys in the media.

AMY GOODMAN: [David Brooks] wrote a piece called "Why Our Elites Stink," in which he took issue with your book. He wrote, quote, "I’d say today’s meritocratic elites achieve and preserve their status not mainly by being corrupt but mainly by being ambitious and disciplined. They raise their kids in organized families. They spend enormous amounts of money and time on enrichment. They work much longer hours than people down the income scale, driving their kids to piano lessons and then taking part in conference calls from the waiting room." ...

CHRIS HAYES: Well, there’s a whole variety of things in that. I mean, in terms of his assertion that they don’t get there because — they get there because of being hard-working and disciplined, as opposed to being corrupt, I mean, you can be both. In fact, there’s a lot of hard-working, disciplined, totally corrupt folks on Wall Street, for instance, and I don’t think we have to choose between the two.

"You can be both." My stepkids grandfather was a friend of Joe Paterno, served on boards with him and told me often that Paterno was a fine man. I don't think he was blind. You can be honest, upright and admirable in most aspects of your life and career, but fail in the harder tests - which, and it is a shame, is how I see Paterno. He demanded the best of his players, but not of his institution, or himself. Penn State Football now faces the NCAA death penalty, but even without it, good high school players are choosing to go elsewhere. Paterno should have demanded better of PSU.

It isn't just Penn State, or the Vatican, or Wall Street. Most recently we have the Aurora mass murder, with members of the NRA, another 800 lb gorilla, closing ranks against any suggestion that ownership of any sort of gun should be regulated in any way, shape or form. We had the killing of Trayvon Martin, with many white people closing ranks against the suggestion that a young black man didn't do something to deserve being shot to death. We have climate change and energy depletion, with elite think tanks and industry flacks closing ranks to assure us that both are empty threats, easily solved by technological advances.

And we have otherwise liberal-leaning US citizens closing ranks against any suggestion that executive-ordered predator drone strikes might be too indiscriminate a weapon to be wielded by what is supposed to be the world's beacon of due process and democracy.

All of us should demand more of our institutions, and ourselves.

Topics:

Politics

Social Justice

Just a Mass Shooting

Donal — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 13:27:11 +0000

Shooting at Midnight Screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado Leaves 12 Dead, 50 Injured

Although initial stories reported 14 dead, WNYC's The Takeaway and ABC News are saying that the death toll has been revised down to 12, with at least 50 injured.

I was struck by how routine such stories have become on local news. WBAL spent a few minutes on the shooting, then went back to the "Big Story": a political fight over the Maryland Dream Act. One of my daughters lives in Colorado, not that close to Aurora, but not that far, either, so perhaps that makes it more personal. I'll feel better when I hear from her.

I mentioned the shooting to a security guard that frequently rides the light rail on my route. He simply said, "Another one?" He said something about them maybe repealing the 2nd Amendment, which surprised me, because when we aren't talking about the weather, he sounds anti-government and fairly right-wing. Perhaps wearing a guard's uniform makes him think again about the consequences of lots of folk carrying weapons.

Good Grief

Donal — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:46:11 +0000

PBS is running a BBC show centered around an English town called Kibworth. History of England's host narrator Michael Woods flits between an archeological dig, nearby fields and local archives to illustrate stories about British history. It's informative, but also funny to watch, because when an archivist or archaeologist pulls out some old parchment or bit of bone, Woods' enthusiastic gushing sounds much like the appraisers on Antiques Roadshow. "That's a really nice tibia, dear." It is also clear that Brit reenactors have a lot more history, and costumes, to work with than Americans.

In Episode Four, Woods talked about Henry V putting down an insurrection of Lollards — heretic peasants led by Henry's old friend Sir John Oldcastle (a probable model for Falstaff). Henry's forces were alerted, dispersed and executed the insurgents forthwith, and years later Oldcastle was slowly burned at stake, but Woods blithely reassures the audience that the government eventually granted the religious freedoms they and their predecessors who followed Wat Tyler had wanted. So it was all good.

I'm wondering how our age will be described in a few hundred years. Will it be an age of revolutions, or failed revolts? A dark age, or an enlightenment? Will some future Woods allow that a lot of folk died protesting the oligarchy, but that the world is much better off because the oligarchy eventually relented on a few policies? Will he note that fracked water doesn't taste bad to those who have grown up drinking it?

John Michael Greer has been on a roll about empire this summer, but in On the Far Side of Denial, takes time to opine that debates over peak oil indicate that the US pundit class has finally arrived at Kubler-Ross' denial stage.

Over the last few weeks, a number of my fellow peak oil writers have expressed worries about this outpouring of counterfactual drivel. Myself, I find it a very hopeful sign. What we are seeing is the shattering of the consensus that has excluded any discussion of peak oil from the collective conversation of our time. Plenty of pundits who refused to talk about peak oil at all are now talking about it incessantly. Even though they’re screeching at the top of their lungs that it can’t happen, and scrabbling around for any argument, however feeble or blatantly false, they can use to back up that proposition, they’re still talking about it.

It is simplistic, but I'm throwing various camps into various stages to see if they stick:

Denial: Republican Party, Democratic Party, Wall Street, Mainstream Media
Anger: Tea Party, Green Party, Occupy movement, the Working Poor, the Underemployed
Bargaining: Locavores, Cleantech, Alt Energy
Depression: Survivalists, the Unemployed
Acceptance: ?

At Econbrowser, bargainer James Hamilton addresses denialist Maugeri's counterfactual drivel that we have plenty of oil, or at least stuff like oil.

I agree with Maugeri that new production from places like the United States and Iraq is going to be very helpful. But I think he substantially overstates the case for optimism. If we are counting on sources such as shale/tight oil, oil sands, and deepwater to replace production lost from mature conventional oil fields, the days of cheap oil are never going to return.

In Technology Races Depletion, bargainer Tom Whipple doesn't mention LENR or cold fusion this time, but thinks we'll get along:

Experts in efficiency tell us that here in America we could get along with a third less energy and never miss it. The Europeans burn half the oil we do in the Untitled States and seem to get along.

Off the radar screens for most of us, however are insights into the pace at which technological developments impacting our future are taking place. One of my favorite websites is the one run by the Green Car Congress which catalogues all the developments announced each day relevant to better efficiency and less polluting energy. Every month there are dozens of announcements from all over the world of new products or claimed technical breakthroughs that could be useful in getting us through to the latter half of this century.

I read GCC, too, but I wonder how much it will cost to maintain and repair all this new technology.

Dmitry Orlov is probably as close to acceptance as anyone. In Unlearn, Rewild, Orlov suggests that we escape to the fringes of society, but be able to "act white" when necessary to stay out of trouble with the law.

There are entire shelves of books full of talk about “preparation,” “survival,” “sustainability” and so forth. Just about all of them avoid the real issue. And so I was very happy to come across one that doesn't: Unlearn, Rewild by Miles Olson, which is just going to press as I write this. Miles is not a theorist but a practitioner: he and his group of friends have been living off the land as squatters for many years. He doesn't mince words: we “civilized” humans are living in a “human monoculture” prison; we have fallen into a technology trap.

Back in denial, the wife tells me that the Altoona Mirror is filled with stories for and against pulling down the statue of JoePa, the death penalty for Penn State football and even newly revealed victims of Sandusky. On cable I watch the Tour de France, and get to know cyclists Wiggins, Froome, van Garderen, Evans, Pinot — fantastic athletes, some of whom will be accused of doping in a few years. The Olympics starts in a week, and they seem to have enough condoms to allow for other thrills than victory. I'll be concentrating on swimming and tennis (Nadal has withdrawn!), but I also enjoy track and field, and other than rhythmic gymnastics, there are a lot of sports I can be persuaded to watch.

Topics:

World Affairs

Bane for Dummies

Donal — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 01:35:52 +0000

Have you heard, this new movie, the Batman movie -- what is it, the Dark Knight Lights Up or something? Whatever the name of it is. That's right, Dark Knight Rises, Lights Up, same thing. Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there's now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date's been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?" - Rush Limbaugh

Bain & Company does precede Bane, the comic book supervillain. Bain & Company dates from 1973 while Bane was first drawn (above) for Batman: Vengeance of Bane in January of 1993, and figured in the Knightfall arc. Romney (left) ran for office in 1994, losing to Ted Kennedy, who slammed him on Bain, but never thought to compare Romney to Bane.

Bane appeared in Batman & Robin (1995) and several animated films, while Romney did not run again until 2002. Bane was written into The Dark Knight Rises between 2008 and 2010, well after Romney had lost the Republican nomination to John McCain, and well before he became the presumptive nominee for 2012.

It is great timing, though, that Bain is breaking the Romney campaign just as Bane takes on the Batman.

Topics:

Arts & Entertainment

Piling on the Leaf

Donal — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:31:02 +0000

In between following sports and writing haikus, I've noticed that the Leaf can't catch a break. As if temperature management problems in Phoenix weren't enough, the NY Times' Wheels blog and Plugin Cars each report that for eleven Leaf owners, something has gone haywire between the Nissan Leaf and the GE Wattstation, leaving their batteries severely damaged.

TTAC's Alex Dykes offers a clear explanation of charging an EV or plugin hybrid in the US. Briefly, the EV's onboard system manages the charging as long as the charging station meets the minimum Society of Automobile Engineers (SAE) J1772 standard. What could go wrong? Dykes speculates:

Assuming there is no design fault inherent in the Wattstation’s “control pilot” design (and we might assume this logically because the issues are limited to Nissan Leaf vehicles only), the most likely possibility is a problem with an underrated or faulty D1 diode in the Leaf’s charger that makes the control pilot circuit more susceptible to transient current and failure. While it does seem fishy that the problems are only reported with the Wattstation and not the popular Leviton and Nissan branded chargers, the issue likely comes down to surge suppression and bad luck. It is likely that Nissan uses a D1 diode with a lower rating (and therefore affording less protection) than the Volt and Prius plug-in. With so few EVs on the road, and little public information on the specifications of electrical components in the chargers it is hard to say for sure.

But whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, or so saith Murphy. When electricity works, it is great. When it doesn't, it is maddening, because the problems are so often invisible.

... your home might be killing your leaf. If you live in a home built before 1960, your home was likely built without grounded outlets, and possibly without the neutral line being connected to ground properly. If the neutral is “floating,” there is the possibility of having some very strange voltage potentials at the charging connector to your car.

Also known as dirty power. So, if you're just praying for HGTV to show up and rewire your house for free, you might not want to put in a charging station.

BTW, MyNissanLeaf's list of lost battery bar Leafs is up to 27, and some Phoenix bar losers are planning to meet at the Roosevelt bar to drown their sorrows — there's a charging station nearby. The Leaf's dashboard indicates twelve bars when new, and fewer bars means less battery capacity. Nissan advised that owners would gradually lose bars, but over years, not months. Many owner have lost two bars, and one owner has lost three.

Gasless in Seattle, who is not even close to Phoenix, is worried about value, and is considering switching to Tesla:

The northwest will likely fair amongst the best in the country due to the cool ambient year round temps. My concern is that Nissan is botching this so bad that the market for the car will be irreparably damaged. While I was very clear about the (lack of) guarantee I signed and it's limits, I was very much going on a variety of things that have come out of the Nissan camp such as that they plowed 4 Billion into the battery research, that they'd thoroughly tested in Phoenix, even had a car on a track there with over 100,000 miles on it and ticking, getting quick charged continuously, with no signs of degradation (been told this by more than one Nissan salesman, even recently). Nowhere did I hear that "gradual" could mean 20+% in one year, I was prepared for 20% over 5 years. What is happening now is so beyond anything spelled out that it brings into question the validity of any claims coming from Nissan. the fear contagion is dangerous and will likely cause a contraction of caution in the market. I can't afford that hit, even if protecting myself means feeding the trend.

Topics:

Technology

Green Party Convenes in Baltimore

Donal — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 19:15:51 +0000

I biked home last night, took a quick swim, then turned on Democracy Now. As I sorted laundry, I listened to Amy Goodman interview the presumptive Green Party presidential nominee, Dr Jill Stein, and her veep nominee, Cheri Honkola. In the first interview Goodman asked Dr Stein what she would do after elected, and she spoke about a Green New Deal and Medicare for All. "But how's she going to get Congress to approve anything? That's what I'd ask her." I thought. She also felt that the ACA, "basically pits the very poor against the near poor."

At the end of the second interview, Goodman said, "We’ve been speaking with Jill Stein, who’s the Green Party’s 2012 presumptive presidential nominee. The vote will take place tomorrow here in Baltimore, where the Green Party convention is underway." "What?" I thought. While local news told me that a detective had resigned after being caught stealing groceries, and that more speed cameras were being placed near school zones, they hadn't mentioned that the Green Party's National Nominating Convention was being held at the Holiday Inn near the Convention Center. Sheesh.

I tried registering for media credentials online, but got no response, so this morning I took the light rail in to attend the Saturday session, which was only $25. Just after 8:30, I was directed to Press Contact Starlene Rankin at the media credential desk. A fellow named Klaus found his yellow badge. After passing Allison Keyes of NPR right through, Starlene asked, "How do you spell that?," pulled up dagblog on her smartphone, and said, "OK, that looks real enough."

The crowd first struck me as looking like the peak oil crowd at ASPO. Lots of longish grey hair and ponytails. There was a small crowd wearing Minnesota green t-shirts. A lot of people smiled as they walked by, coming back from Dottie's snack bar with coffee. Someone announced that the press conference would be on the twelfth floor at 9 AM. I rode up the elevator with Press Contact Scott McLarty, who then announced to the few of us already there that the press conference was actually starting at 9:30. I walked across the low-ceilinged lobby towards a room with a lot more people. A man told me I probably wanted the other side, because this was a meeting of the International Chemical Workers. I asked if it was a trade group, and he told me a little about what they did and then said, "Good luck, brother," so I knew it was a union. Their meeting had baked goods, and ours didn't.

Back downstairs in the hallway a lightly bearded young man in a grey jacket was chatting up Connie, a young woman in grey suit. He was in advocacy somewhere. She was a lawyer, and had helped represent Occupy Columbus. After he wandered off, I asked her a few questions. She was a delegate and was already committed to Dr Stein. She liked Roseanne Barr, and thought she connected well with working people, but thought she hadn't showed up enough to establish herself as a real candidate. She said Occupy Columbus was almost silent now. I told her a bit about Occupy Baltimore, then headed back upstairs, thinking, "aren't most of us working people?"

I ran into Steve and Cathy, nominating delegates from Florida. They asked about dagblog. I told them we had a range of folk from moderate Dems sticking with Obama, to disgruntled Dems voting Romney in protest to anti-government types refusing to vote at all. "Romney as a protest vote?," said Cathy, "That's stupid." They liked Baltimore.

In the twelfth floor lobby with Klaus were Christian and Matthias, from SudDeutche Zeitung (literally South German Newspaper), who were interviewing Ben Manski, formerly of the Wisconsin Green Party and now Stein's campaign coordinator. Christian seemed to be asking most of the questions. As I came in, Manski was claiming that the US Green Party had its roots in the German Green Party, starting with some immigrants in Wisconsin. Answering another question, Manski said there was a great deal of racial diversity in the movement, particularly Native Americans. Christian asked if they actually thought they could win or were just sending a message. Manski said they were here to win, and Christian just smiled. Manski admitted they were up against long odds, but said that they had to start accumulating political force, rather than just setting a competing agenda.

Christian admitted that it was an old story, but asked about the idea that voting Green would cause a replay of Nader undercutting Gore. Manski felt that was a fraudulent argument perpetrated by the Democratic Party, that Pat Buchanan had also drawn away votes and that the Supreme Court had made the wrong decision. He thought it was a canard, and that Democrats act like they own their voters. Christian said they were from Munich, and asked where dagblog was from. A lot of people assumed dagblog was connected to a place.

As the press conference started, there were about 20 journos sitting and about ten or twelve camera persons standing behind us. McLarty announced that Roseanne Barr was a no-show. Ben Manski boasted that the Green Party was not dominated by corporate money, that he started as the sole campaign worker with $4,000 to spend, and that they were here to win. He introduced Dr Jill Stein, saying that she had twice bested Mitt Romney during the Mass Governor debates. Stein repeated much of what she had told Amy Goodman about the current government imposing austerity, about her Green New Deal, about halting climate change and making oil wars obsolete. She wants to enact a moratorium on foreclosures, to provide free higher education as was done with the GI bill, and to downsize the military. Cheri Honkola spoke about her advocacy for the poor, again echoing what she covered on Democracy Now, and mentioning her incredibly racially diverse extended family.

After Stein and Honkola sat down, McLarty asked for questions. No one raised hands, but he pointed at NPR's Keyes, who asked about the Green Party getting on the ballots in more states. Then McLarty pointed at Christian who asked his Nader Gore question again, and got the same answer. A black man in the front row asked how they were going to motivate the poor into voting, and Honkola stepped up to the mike. She said that they expected votes from the newly poor. She recounted getting a call to take in a family of five. Their water had been shut off, and welfare officials were prepared to take the children if no one with water took in the family.

Each time, as Stein or Honkola was answering a question, Manski was floating behind, waiting to add a few comments. I stopped trying to figure out the signals and simply raised my hand. Based on Manski's comment about corporate money, I asked whether the Green Party had accepted or would consider accepting contributions from an environmentally-responsible corporation, if say, Patagonia wanted to support them. Stein hurriedly said that they accepted no corporate contributions or PAC money, and that even if money was found to be from a high ranking company official it would be returned. Manski chimed in that corporations had offered money in the past, but that Patagonia had not.

Keyes asked about getting into the televised debates. Stein noted that, unlike the league of women Voters, the debates are run by the Commission on Presidential Debates which answers to the two major parties, not to the voters, and that they had to get to 15%. Someone asked about diversity, and Manski noted that the Green Party in some places has merged with remnants of Jesse Jackson's rainbow coalition. For example in DC they had worked together to stop redistricting.

After the press conference, I went to the main room and looked at people's t-shirts. Many were shades of green. Think Green, Live Green, Vote Green. One had a large green and yellow star dripping oil, with FUBP above. Whirlpool Commits Genocide. StopClimateChange.net. Occupy the Vote. A fellow told me he got his McLenin's tee (Vlad below golden arches) in Russia, then explained that the convention was arguing whether to discard a motion to change the platform's recommendation that apportionment of electoral college votes be based on the popular vote. It was hard to hear, and some people were calling out Mic Check! Arkansas was for it, so they voted three votes and two proxies Yes, then realized they meant, No. The Black Caucus, which seemed equal to a state delegation, was against it so they voted two votes and one proxy Yes. California was next, but someone claimed that the Black caucus only had two votes. Much of the morning session is on CSpan.

I decided to go to lunch. I walked to Light Street Cycles, told Penny about the convention and asked if she had any chain lube. She did, and it was even soy-based.

I returned about 3:30, and they were close to an official vote that would select Dr Stein. Cheri Honkola was waiting outside the hall with her son, his sitter and a campaign worker. She said she had spoken to larger crowds, but this seemed more important to her. After Stein's lead was deemed insuperable, Ben Manski gave a rousing speech about how far he had seen the Green Party come in thirty years. Then a party official asked for a vote of acclamation that Honkola be the VP candidate, which carried easily, though a few people were pointedly not applauding.

Even though she was reading from lined paper, Honkola gave a very moving acceptance speech. She spoke about having to move with her two kids out of their Minnesota apartment into her car, the car being totaled while parked, and being faced with the choice of occupying a vacant house or freezing. That led to her helping many others occupy otherwise vacant housing as well.

Stein spoke at length about the ideals of the Green Party, but first recounted her early dismay at having to practice largely through prescribing drugs. She likes to say that she is now practicing political medicine.

Manski's, Honkola's and Stein's speeches are on CSpan, starting at about 2:18.

It will be interesting to see how they run their campaign.

Topics:

Politics

Should MyCar be YourCar?

Donal — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 13:38:01 +0000

Last week in Mississippi, strange bedfellows former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe, former RNC chair Haley Barbour and former President Bill Clinton grandly unveiled the MyCar — an EV made in America.

"Too many people have given up on American manufacturing, saying manufacturing jobs are not coming back. But GTA set out to prove them wrong," said Terry McAuliffe, chairman of GreenTech. "For too long, America has been inventing products here and sending the production jobs overseas. But we're part of a rebirth for American manufacturing. We're proud to bring manufacturing jobs back and prove that the U.S. is still the world leader in technological innovation and manufacturing."

In most American jurisdictions the MyCar will probably be classified as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), or as a Low Speed Vehicle (LSV) in some northern states and Canada. According to the timeline on AutoChannel, Hong Kong Polytechnic conceived of a two-seat diesel ecocar in 2003, and formed a partnership with EuAuto, an Asian company with some European staff. Increasing oil prices in 2005 convinced the design team to explore the EV market instead. They launched mycar in 2007, and began mass-production two years later.

Hong Kong China October 23, 2009; The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and EuAuto Technology Limited (EuAuto) today jointly announced the official launch of their home-grown electric vehicle mycar in Hong Kong. The launching ceremony was held at PolyU campus with Mr John Tsang Chun-wah, Financial Secretary of the HKSAR Government, Prof. Timothy W. Tong, President of PolyU, and Mr Peter Sun, Chairman of EuAuto Technology Limited as the officiating guests.

With its body designed by internationally renowned Italian car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, mycar has obtained the World Manufacturer Identification (WMI) Code earlier this year and it went on sales in many European countries including the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Denmark.

It is the first Hong Kong-developed vehicle which fully complied with European standards, and also the first home-grown vehicle to hit the international market.

A British article in 2010 made sport of MyCar's looks, but compared to the one-seat Tango, which never was produced, or the often bought-and-sold Think, mycar was doing well. All it needed was capital letters.

The exterior vaguely resembles a Suzuki X-90, but more cool than that with alloy wheels (standard) and a futuristic profile. We’d also note: The MyCar looks much better without anyone actually inside of it (see photos [in link]). There’s something about a fully grown adult in the MyCar (photo above) that makes it looks a little like a clown car.

McAuliffe's GreenTech Automotive, Inc, then based in Virginia, acquired EuAuto in 2010, and settled on Mississippi for production.

Affordability is a key element of GTA's strategy for product development. With an expected base price of $15,500, MyCar will be considerably less expensive than other all-electric vehicles. Future models, including the MyCar EV planned for early 2014, will also be competitively priced.

It's not hard to envision that the MyCar could find a niche, particularly in the South. In 2011, CBS Sunday Morning ran a video segment on a Florida village where many seniors were driving golf carts customized to look like classic cars. An NEV is a step up from golf carts, but could be customized as easily.

Way back in 2008, I wondered if anyone would spend fifteen grand on an NEV when for a bit more they could buy a Yaris (my editor added the snark). Now I wonder if anyone will spend fifteen or eighteen grand on a MyCar when for seven or eight grand they can get into a Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) e2. GEM was purchased by DaimlerChrysler in 2000, kept by Chrysler, then sold to Polaris in 2011, so it has American creds itself, and doesn't look any more clownish than the MyCar, though like the ZENN and Dynasty NEVs, the MyCar coach does include more semiotics identifying it as an automobile than the GEM — which looks like exactly like the utility vehicle it is.

A real estate firm down the street has kept a four passenger GEM e4 parked in front for the last several years (locals have learned to step over the orange extension cord). The e4's open profile and small size is perfect for touring local rowhouses. I just checked and GEMs have dropped in price considerably from 2008.

GEM also offers pickup versions, probably to compete with Cushmans, and I've considered getting one as a second car in PA — something I could use to pickup plywood and wood pellets now, then keep as primary transportation after I retire, if I can ever afford to do that.

Topics:

Technology

Interesting times

Donal — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:04:18 +0000

We live in interesting times, but everyone seems to be watching TV. Actors Andy Griffith and Ernest Borgnine recently died. Each man proved himself in serious roles, Griffith in A Face in the Crowd and Borgnine in Marty, but they were far better known for long-running comedic roles on television. Don Grady died, too. He was only 68, and was known for playing Robbie on My Three Sons, but apparently he was a serious and devoted musician.

I wonder how many of us will be better-known for our long-running comedic lives?

With bike share programs blooming, and so many people biking to work and even enjoying it, articles about automobiles vs cyclists vs pedestrians abound right now. The basic problem is that people are just about as law-abiding on bikes as they are in cars or on foot, and the foolhardy ones get all the attention. In the comment sections are the usual crude threats against cyclists by territorial drivers. I just defriended someone after reading that sort of comment on Facebook.

After years of hoping to be part of the solution, peak oil believers like Luis de Sousa are feeling ignored. After attending an ASPO conference in Europe, De Sousa wrote The Last Peak Oil Conference about his discouragement with trying to manage the downward slope of oil production so that people don't suffer. The problem is that to most people, Peak Oil looks more like Hard Times than The Road, and the downward slope is already being managed to the benefit of those that can manage it.

Climate change appears in our back yards, but the weatherpersons still urge us to stay indoors and run the AC. I went running last Thursday after work. I hadn't gone twenty yards before a fellow leaned out of his pickup window and told me it was too hot to run. It was hot, but I planned my route around shady roads.

There are lots of articles reporting that you can drive a Leaf in reverse very fast. While USA Today observes that U.S. drivers are slow to embrace all-electric vehicles, Triple Pundit notes that Nissan is trying to mass market their EV to "green and tech-minded consumers." My Nissan Leaf has a thread called Marketing Suggestions for Nissan: Let's Get Serious with suggestions from owners, dealers and the occasional Prius owner that was thinking about getting a Leaf.

But the battery depletion conversation on My Nissan Leaf continues and the list of Arizona drivers losing charge bars grows longer. Posters seem devoted to the concept of the electric vehicle, but while Nissan is supposed to add some sort of temperature management in years to come, early adopters are getting more and more ticked off that Nissan won't acknowledge their problem. Let's hope that Nissan isn't driving the company in reverse.

Maybe we should be driving plywood cars. Or bamboo bikes.

A former GM employee named Ozzie Zehner has written a book called Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism, in which he attacks many of the technological solutions that are supposed to keep us in American middle class splendor despite declines in fossil fuel production. Wired's Autopia presents a sort of point-counterpoint on his EV arguments with other EV pundits. Commenters started a lively discussion on the vagaries of wind power, which Zehner also questions.

In a similar vein, Pierre Desrochers and Shimizu Hiroku, husband and wife academics from the University of Toronto, wrote The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000-Mile Diet, which questions Michael Pollan's contention that eating local is better than shipping salad from overseas. Desrochers and Shimizu claim the long train ride to deliver your arugula is more efficient than driving your Volvo home from Whole Foods, that long supply lines make urbanization possible and that if Peak Oil occurs, we'll just go back to coal. While there are cogent arguments against strict locavorism, Alternet finds their arguments bogus.

Speaking of which, we won't hear Tom or Ray calling "bogus" on each other's diagnoses much longer. The Car Talk radio show is ending soon.

Topics:

Social Justice

Food & Drink

Technology